Dinanath Batra ka khatra

So, you intellectual-types who bad-mouthed retired teacher and unretired RSS preacher Dinanath Batra, leading light in blacking out Wendy Doniger’s book on Hinduism, well, you can eat your words now. For Batra does not pathologically dislike books. In fact, he writes them himself!

And his writing is so deep that Gujarat’s government has included his pearls of wisdom in its school curriculum, no less. Hence, alongside Shakespeare and Einstein-bhai, Gujarat’s girls and boys will now soak up Dinanath Batra’s view of the world.

Importantly, this offers an idea of India which looks fatter than ever before, for this is Awesome Akhand Bharat (AAB) — which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

But our neighbours needn’t be alarmed. Batra poses no khatra to their real-life borders because his AAB only maps out India as a cultural group. That makes sense, given how much we share in common with Afghanistan’s Talibanist culture vultures these days.

But will neighbours like Myanmar — which external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj visits soon — buy Batra’s landscape? And another query — if all these nations are one happy family yodelling, ‘Hum saath saath hain!’, why is India cancelling Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s residence permit, handing her a niggardly two-month visa instead? Batra’s big boss in the Modi sarkaar should answer that before Taslima thunders, ‘Lajja!’ once again.

Still, life isn’t just question-marks in Batra’s books. It’s being alleged they also point out fun facts, like how stem cell technology and motor cars — aka ‘anashva rath’, how’s that for horsepower — existed during the Vedic Age.

The latter may have aided those desis who weren’t Shaktimaan and couldn’t just fly to the nearest havan-kund where friends in the Stoned, sorry, Stone Age celebrated their happy birthdays — and where you should, recommends Batra, celebrate yours as well.

So step away from that birthday cake with its twinkling candles, which are just a sign of wickedly vain and alluring videshi ways meant to spoil simple swadeshi souls (and waistlines). Instead, celebrate your birthday by reciting the Gayatri Mantra. That’s what makes a joyous janam-din.

If anything Batra is conservative, he should have taken this line of thinking further. Why should our schoolchildren (and the rest of the nation) be in thrall to dusht videshi games like cricket, football or tennis? These ought to be banned when we have our very own kabaddi.

However watching television is allowed, as long as you don’t credit it to pretentious foreigners like John Logie Baird. For didn’t our ancient sages possess divya drishti?

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.